Weeky E-News

I’m not so sure if we’re really using the word “awesome” the way people have always understood it. I looked it up and…

“Awesome” as we know it, first showed up in the Queen’s English in 1598 and really means “dread mixed with veneration”. It comes from “awe” which people starting saying around 1200 ad. “Awe” comes from the Old Norse word “agi” and the Old English word “ege”, which mean “fright and fear”. These come from an older word, “agh”, which means, “to be depressed or afraid”. So far, “awesome”’s not sounding super-awesome…

The meaning we know of ”awesome”…”Something that is exceptionally cool”… as in “Totally awesome, dude!”…wasn’t around until 1980!

So for 780 years, “awesome” meant somethin’ like “very scary, intimidating, depressing, or freaky” and only for the last 29 years has it meant, well…”awesome!”

But y’all know what I mean when, as I was saying, I “hope you’re having an awesome day!”

It’s amazing how much language changes through the years! Some words just don’t mean what they used to! The word “conversation” used to mean your “behavior”! Like in the 1611 King James Version of 1 Peter 3:1…Peter talks about the “conversation” of wives toward their husbands.

But not all husbands. He’s talking about husbands who don’t believe in Jesus. He says that if “any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives” That's the NIV. But the ol’ King Jim says they can be won over, without a word, “by the conversation of their wives”! If you didn’t know that’s how they used that word, you’d think, “How y’suppose to win ‘em over without a word by your conversation?...Sign language? Write ‘em notes?”

Lately I’ve been reading one of my favorite books of all time, “Pilgrim’s Progress”, written by John Bunyan in 1678. It’s the most amazing book ever!! The brother never went to school but wrote 88 books! This one has been translated into 200 languages! It’s even been translated from English into English…as in, from the one they used in the 1600’s to the one we use today.

But that’s a little sad. I know they’re just trying to make it so people today can understand it. But he used some of the coolest words! Words we don’t use any more…but we should!

When the star of the book finally understands how to be forgiven and freed of the burden on his back, and it falls off and into an underground cave…well, check it out for your self…

“Up this way, therefore, did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back.

He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more…"

"He said with a merry heart, 'He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death.' Then he stood still a while, to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden. He looked, therefore, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks.”

“Lightsome”! That’s a word we shouda hung on to! It would be awesome if we could get that word back! I’m not sure exactly what it means but it must be somethin’ like “nothing weighing on your heart”, “burden-free and joy-filled”, “unworried”…or it may mean “a heart free of darkness”, “a heart full of sunshine”! In either case, with his burden gone, his record clean, and his joy returned, he was a lot more “lightsome” dude then he was when he woke up that day!

You’re one of God’s very own kids! He’s listening to your heart all day! He’s working stuff out for you constantly! In ways you don’t even know! He’s got you covered no matter what! You’re forgiven! Why not be “lightsome” today…”lightsome” all day!? We could all use more “lightsomeness”! Ask around…I bet the folks in your life would love you to be more and more “lightsome”! It’d make their day and heart more “lightsome”, too!